Author--

The Earth is 4.5 billion years old but the universe is over 13 billion years old. Early on some stars went super nova creating material for a second generation of stars, and some of those went super nova creating a third generation of stars. Our sun is one of these third generations. It's not hard to imagine life forms that are millions of years more advanced than we are.

SOME went super nova, most did not. The point I was getting at is that our sun is among the youngest in the galaxy so most intelligent life would be waaay more advanced than us.
Second gen would be ~4.3 billion years ahead of us and first gen would be ~8.6 billion years more advanced. Even a lot of 3rd gen could be millions of years ahead of us because dinosaurs stunted the development of mammals on Earth for millions of years.

But but Dizz, if all dem civilizations is billions and millions of years ahead of us, you'd think our radio-telescopes would literally be abuzz with their varied transmissions doncha think, but so far nothing.

They wouldn't even try to communicate with us for the same reasons we don't try to communicate with an ant colony in the middle of some jungle. We're too insignificant and we don't communicate on the same level. The best we could hope for is to contact someone on our own level which won't happen anytime soon. The speed of light is too slow to talk to someone 50 light years away. It would take 100 years to get a response.

One slight detail...

Star fusion created higher element, which supernoves then dispersed in clouds which then gathered to form proto-stars, which in turn formed new solar systems.

According to current theories, the earliest stars (first generation after the Big Bang) would not have ANY higher elements, while 2nd generation stars and plamets would only have some.

Life as we understand it could not have evolved in first generation star systems, which would have been entirely formed of light gases.
Even if some form of gaz-based life had evolved, the elements required for technological development would have been missing, therefore no technological civilization could have existed.

Second generation star system would have some of those higher elements, but not all of them, and they would would still be in lower proportion than in third generation star systems.
Technological civization would be theoretically possible, but would have a scarcity of resources, untill they develop fusion and can create themselves higher elements to fulfill their technical needs; manking has not reached that stage yet other than in higly expensive experiments which cannot produce elements in quantities.